Historical Data Based Navigational Routing

ABSTRACT

Navigational routing is generated incorporating an estimation of future traffic conditions. The future traffic conditions are estimated based on historical traffic data, e.g., obtained over a recent period of time. The system provides navigational routing based on historical traffic data incorporated into a calculated route of travel. The historical data is used to calculate a probability that given roads along the route will be problematic at a certain time of the day, i.e., at the time, day of week, and place that you would be expected to be traveling on that certain road. Accordingly, historical traffic data is used to help determine a best route based on the probability of certain roads being problematic at a certain time of day.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates generally to navigation systems. Moreparticularly, it relates to improved navigational routing.

2. Background of the Related Art

If someone wants to travel from Point A to Point B on a future day,there is currently no mechanism to produce an accurate travel time thattakes into consideration estimated future traffic. For instance,conventional systems permit a person to generate a route without theeffects of traffic, or even to generate a route based on the effects ofcurrent traffic conditions. For instance, a tourist might make plans totravel to New York City from Virginia for a Broadway show on the comingFriday, several days hence. FIG. 4 shows a conventional process ofgenerating a best route of travel based on an input (or otherwiseobtained) origination of travel, and an input destination of travel.

For instance, as shown in FIG. 4, in step 502 the origination of travelis input or otherwise obtained. In step 504, the desired destination oftravel is input. In step 506, the best route of travel from theorigination to the desired destination is calculated. Using such anexample, conventional “fastest route” routing from Virginia to New YorkCity would indicate that driving the fastest route should take about 7hours, without traffic considerations.

The driver may print out the fastest route directions from aconventional web program such as MAPQUEST™ on a home computer before thedriver leaves the origination point, obtain the fastest route from asuitable web site, e.g., hosted by a travel service such as AutomobileAssociation of America (AAA)™, be directed from a portable navigationdevice in their car, etc. In any event, eventually, the day of travelcomes, and the person departs from Virginia at 10:00 am as planned andfollows the planned route to New York City. Let's say that in the givenexample using a prior art navigation system best, it takes the person 9hours to drive from their location in Virginia to New York City thatday—much more than the originally calculated 7 hours.

The present inventors appreciated that the increase in travel time maybe attributed to unexpected delays and traffic jams. Moreover, if thedriver is not too familiar with relevant areas of congestion, it islikely that the areas of congestion will not be navigated around. As aresult, the travel time is increased, risking missed appointments, show,performance, etc.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In accordance with the principles of the present invention, a navigationsystem for providing driving directions comprises a navigation systemmodule to calculate a desired best route to be driven based on usercriteria. A historical traffic database contains entries relating anexpected speed based on historical traffic conditions of a given roadsegment, at a given time. The navigation system module has access to thehistorical traffic database so that it can calculate a deviation betweena time of travel based on a posted speed limit and a time of travelbased on predicted speeds due to probable traffic.

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, a method ofproviding driving directions to a driver comprises obtaining adestination of a trip to be taken. A time of departure of the trip isobtained, the trip to be embarked upon at a time in the future. A bestroute to the destination is calculated using predicted driving speedbased on historical data at an expected time of use of relevant roadsegments.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent tothose skilled in the art from the following description with referenceto the drawings:

FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary system for providing navigational routingusing historical traffic data, in accordance with the principles of thepresent invention.

FIG. 2 depicts an exemplary structure of entries in a historical trafficdata database, in accordance with the principles of the presentinvention.

FIG. 3 shows an exemplary process of generating navigational routingbased on historical data, in accordance with the principles of thepresent invention.

FIG. 4 shows a conventional process of generating a best route of travelbased on an input (or otherwise obtained) origination of travel, and aninput destination of travel.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF ILLUSTRATIVE EMBODIMENTS

Conventional navigational routing systems provide a best route based ona choice of either a fastest route or a shortest route between thestarting point (usually the current location) and a given destination.In accordance with the principles of the present invention, navigationalrouting is generated incorporating an estimation of future trafficconditions. The use of estimated future traffic conditions is preferablyimplemented to find a fastest route, or a shortest route.

The present invention provides a system that provides navigationalrouting based on roads combined with their respective historical trafficdata to generate a desired route of travel. Future traffic conditionsare estimated based on historical traffic data, e.g., obtained over arecent period of time.

According to an embodiment of the invention, historical traffic data isused to calculate a probability that given roads along a requestedtravel route will be problematic (i.e., significantly slow traffic belowposted speed limits) at a certain time of the day, i.e., at the time,day of week, and place that you would be expected to be traveling onthat certain road. Accordingly, the invention uses historical trafficdata to help determine a best route including expected traffic, based onthe probability of certain roads being problematic at a certain time ofa given day.

FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary system for providing navigational routingusing historical traffic data, in accordance with the principles of thepresent invention.

In particular, as shown in FIG. 1, a navigation system 202 receivesroute criteria (e.g., a destination) from a suitable user input system204 (e.g., a keypad). The user is in turn presented with a calculatedbest route (e.g., fastest or shortest route) including recentlyexperienced historical traffic delays, via a printout or display 206.

Importantly, the navigation system 202 accesses, and makes use ofup-to-date historical traffic data 200. The historical traffic data 200is made up-to-date via an historical data maintenance/update system 208that periodically or otherwise routinely obtains recent traffic data andcompiles it into the historical traffic data database 200. It ispreferred that old traffic data be purged, and/or reduced in weightedcalculations, to determine a probability of slowed traffic conditions ona given stretch of road at a given time on a given day.

The weighted probability of a given slowed traffic condition can bearticulated into a probable speed of a given stretch of road.

The probable speed at a given time, on a given day or date, may beperiodically calculated and stored in a road database. For the purposesof calculating any given route, the posted speed limit for any givenroad segment may be assumed to be the calculated speed due to heaviertraffic conditions at a given time, date in the future.

The historical traffic data maintenance/update system 208 may cull oldertraffic data from the historical traffic data database 200 as desired,e.g., as a configurable value set by the service provider. For instance,data older than 14 days, 21 days, 28 days, etc., may be deleted from thehistorical traffic data database 200.

Similarly, traffic information relating to one-time events may also beculled or otherwise deleted from the historical traffic data database200, e.g., traffic data obtained during a nearby celebratory parade forthe local pro baseball team.

FIG. 2 depicts an exemplary structure of entries in a historical trafficdata database, in accordance with the principles of the presentinvention.

In particular, as shown in FIG. 2, each entry in the historical trafficdata database 200 may include pertinent information, e.g., road segment252, percent congestion (or other quantized measure of an amount ofreduction of the posted speed limit for that given road segment) 254,day of week 256, time of day 258, etc. Other information such as themonth and day may also be included in each entry in the historicaltraffic data database 200.

FIG. 3 shows an exemplary process of generating navigational routingbased on historical data, in accordance with the principles of thepresent invention.

In particular, in step 301 of FIG. 3, the user inputs an origination ofa desired route to be taken (or the current position of the user may bea default origination).

In step 302, the user may additionally input a destination of a desiredroute, as in conventional systems. In accordance with the principles ofthe present invention, calculation of best route includes incorporationof historical data information obtained from a historical traffic datadatabase. Now, using the an otherwise conventional route determinationprocess including other user criteria such as a selection between afastest or shortest route, the best route of travel between theorigination and the destination is generated and provided to the user.

In step 303, relevant information is input to the navigation systemengine 200 regarding future travel such as the date, day of week, timeof departure, etc.

In step 304, starting from the first route segment in the route, thehistorical traffic data database is searched for the “driving speed withtraffic” (or other measure of an expected actual traffic speed) at thegiven Day/Time. For the first segment, it will be the predicted speed on“Day of Travel (converted from Date)” at the departure “Start Time”. Thepredicted speed at the given time at which the car is expected to travelthe relevant segment of road is compared with the posted speed limit forthat relevant segment of road to determine a deviation-in-time.

In step 305, the “Difference in Speed”=Regular speed limit−Time-specificdriving speed, is calculated.

In step 306, the deviation in travel time for that road segment due toexpected traffic conditions is calculated as the Length of roadsegment/Difference in Speed.

In step 307, if this deviation in travel time exceeds a certainthreshold, it is determined that it may be best to generate an alternateroute.

If not, in step 308, the travel time for this segment is added to theTotal Route Time.

In step 309, steps 304 through 308 are repeated for all other routesegments in this route.

At the end of step 309, the Total Route Time should reflect the bestestimate of travel time, taking historical traffic data intoconsideration.

If it is determined that in step 307 the travel time is severelyimpacted by the estimated traffic condition, then generate an alternateroute and go back to step 304. The threshold of severity may be aconfiguration value set by the provider of the navigation system, orconfigured in the user preference.

In particular, the threshold can be a deviation percentage from theoriginal travel time. If the total travel time (as a result of thetraffic) exceeds the original time by, for example, 10%, then analternate route is preferable. For instance, if the normal travel timeshould normally be 10 hours (without any traffic-related reductions inan expected speed of any significant segment of a trip), and theestimated travel time with traffic conditions considered would be 11.5hours (which is a greater than 10% increase), then that road segment canbe temporary “closed” for route consideration and an alternate routeshould be generated. This threshold can take any desired value, and canbe a configurable item set by a provider of the navigation system, byuser preference configuration, or both.

The present invention has particular applicability to any business orpersonal traveler who likes to accurately plan out a trip itinerarywhich includes the arrival time at each stop. The invention can also beadvantageous to travel services such as the Automobile Association ofAmerica (AAA)™.

While the invention has been described with reference to the exemplaryembodiments thereof, those skilled in the art will be able to makevarious modifications to the described embodiments of the inventionwithout departing from the true spirit and scope of the invention.

1. A navigation system for providing driving directions, comprising: anavigation system module to calculate a desired best route to be drivenbased on user criteria; a historical traffic database containing entriesrelating an expected speed based on historical traffic conditions of agiven road segment, at a given time; wherein said navigation systemmodule has access to said historical traffic database so that it cancalculate a deviation between a time of travel based on a posted speedlimit and a time of travel based on predicted speeds due to probabletraffic. 2-12. (canceled)